No Assange account on Twitter, warns WikiLeaks

By G Saravanan

Published in The New Indian Express, Chennai on August 2, 2011:

Source:http://expressbuzz.com/world/no-assange-account-on-twitter-warns-wikileaks/300097.html

CHENNAI: WikiLeaks, the controversial whistleblowing site that leaks classified information from anonymous sources, on Monday announced that their key man Julian Assange does not have any account in the microblogging site, Twitter.

Clearing the air in a tweet on Monday, WikiLeaks said, “Warning: Julian Assange does not have a twitter account, email, facebook, phone, etc. @JulianAssange_ etc (40k followers) are imposters.”

Ironically, the blue “Verified Badge”, which confirms the particular account has been verified and the owner is the rightful and authentic user, is missing in the account. Till Monday, about 1,580 tweets were posted on the microblogging site, which has a picture of Assange and a whopping 42,742 followers. The big followers are Americans and Europeans.

The last tweet from the account was “Couple of cold beers in order this weekend.” It was posted on June 24.

Though most of the tweets from the account linked directly with Julian Assange and WikiLeaks, there were some tweets, which spoke about the Cuban culture.

WikiLeaks (@WikiLeaks) also warned its over 10 lakh followers on Twitter that the account WikiLeaks Argentina (@WikiLeaksAR) is an imposter.

Fake Twitter accounts imitating celebrities, corporations or any other well-known public entities are not uncommon. In the name of Assange, Twitter has another account Julian Ass (@Julian_Ass). The account too has a following of 10,500 members. Most tweets from Julian Ass consist of gossip.

Sometime ago, Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa faced the similar problem as an impersonator had created a Twitter account in her name (@j_Jayalalithaa). She issued a statement disassociating from it in February.